After a 30-year teaching career, a second career preparing taxes and years as a newspaper columnist, Beth Beggs has no problem finding a story to tell. Her humorous columns are a natural step for someone who has always enjoyed a good joke. (Photo by Gay Storms)
Always a reason to laugh
by By Gay Storms
(Posted 6/30/2009 03:34 pm)
Beth Beggs didn’t start life as the class clown.
The Graham Leader’s humorist knew how far to go with humor as a child.
“I was funny at school but obedient,” said Beggs. “I didn’t do pranks but stayed in a lot at recess for talking too much. I wasn’t the class clown, but I did support him by laughing hard at him.”
Being around quiet, serious people tests endurance for Beggs, and for serious occasions like funerals, she has to find the right people to go with.
“I can always find a little humour in any situation,” said Beggs.
It could be something or someone that privately tickles her funnybone. She knows that some people wouldn’t understand her, and sometimes she wonders about her tendency to be amused.
“I remember in the Old Testament there were some children who made fun of Elisha because of his bald head,” she said. “Two bears came out of the woods and ate up these children.”
Beth said as the middle child, she was funny and entertaining to get attention; otherwise, she would have gotten none. But from time to time, her mother tried to get her to settle down.
“My mother would shake her head and say, ‘Beth, people are laughing at you, not with you,’” she said. “I felt horrible about that.”
Beth’s outgoing, fun nature proved hard to suppress and only increased with time. After all, she was part of a family that was surrounded with people all the time. Because of her father’s job, she spent her life in three different Texas towns — Burkburnett, Monahans and Mineral Wells — where her father was chamber of commerce director. After serving as chamber of commerce director, he worked 20 years as a justice of the peace.
“I’m not shy, which I got from my parents. My father never met a stranger,” Beggs said.
Her family background and her innate ability to see the humorous sliver in any situation created the perfect humor columnist.
But Beggs’ humorous column in The Graham Leader was not something she planned out — the idea just hit her out of the blue one day in 1991. After a reader wrote a few columns for the paper, Beggs wondered if she could write a column. She had worked on a book, which was at a frustrating point. She thought it might be best to write something shorter for a change.
She wrote a funny story, but felt self-conscious about having the public read her first attempt at a column.
“I was so embarrassed when I brought the column in, I left it on the desk of the lifestyles editor and ran out of the office. I doubted they would even print it,” she said.
The Graham Leader did print her column, and she got a call asking for more.
Beggs infused stories from ordinary life with her wacky humor and imagination. She introduced two imaginary neighbors, Wanda June and her husband Leonard, to the column. If she or one of her friends did something really goofy, she put it off on her goofball neighbors.
“If it was something stupid, it was Wanda June,” said Beggs. “If it was something really stupid, Leonard did it.”
There are apparently people who think they are real people, but Beggs doesn’t know what to do about that. She introduced Leonard first on July 4, 1991, and later included Wanda June.
“I am always afraid that people will be offended by something I’ve written,” she said. “I made a reference to cats that they didn’t last long around my back yard, and I was worried that cat lovers would get upset.
“Readers shouldn’t take what I write literally. I use exaggeration and imagination to make things funnier.”
Writing a column every week can be a challenge, but Beggs looks forward to the work.
“I’ve written a different column every week except I missed once, the week that Joe died. He had been real sick for four years,” Beggs said. “Writing that column was kinda cathartic. It was almost like a diary, saying in different ways how we can all get through this.”
Beggs was teaching school, taking care of her girls, including getting one off to college, and taking care of her husband, Joe.
The newspaper column was different from anything else she did.
“It was like my anchor to sanity,” said Beggs. “I felt security in the obligation. Besides Joe always enjoyed coming up with an idea for the column.”
Beggs said that lots of people face harder times, and Joe’s death had been the hardest part of life for her. The tough time affirmed what she already believed.
“God doesn’t make bad things for you to go through — God doesn’t make good things,” said Beggs. “God is there to give you the strength to get through whatever you have to face.”
Her favorite hero was the late Erma Bombeck, who died at 69 of a kidney disease — much too early for her legions of fans. She described the humdrum and profound experiences homemakers face as no one else had. Beggs said she wrote the famous lady a letter, telling her she’d written a column for six years for a small-town newspaper and was looking for a book publisher. Beggs asked if there were other things she should be doing to develop as a columnist.
“She wrote me back a personal note in her own handwriting which mentioned what I was doing. Bombeck wrote a short note: ‘It sounds like you’re doing just fine.’”
Preparation for her 30-year teaching career began right after she graduated from Burkburnett High School. She earned English and history degrees and a teacher’s certificate at Midwestern State University.
She taught in Mineral Wells and Wichita Falls before beginning a long teaching career in Graham.
Her husband, Joe, was also a teacher who taught math for 10 years in Graham.
Along came her two daughters, Kathryn (No. 1) and Susan (No. 2), and she found herself juggling teaching, babies and marriage pretty easily. School officials insisted she take off a semester with her first child, but she only took off five weeks with Susan.
“Even when things were awful, I loved teaching,” said Beggs. “I loved all the kids.”
Beggs said she misses teaching, but her days are definitely not dull.
“I am as busy now as I was when I was teaching,” Beggs said.
Beggs began helping Joe with his tax business after he became sick. By the time he died, she knew the business well enough to carry on by herself.
“It’s very busy for four months, but then things settle down,” said Beggs. “Of course, there’s the occasional person that comes by and wants me to do their 1985 taxes. I usually have to talk them into it.”
She loves being free to visit and take care of her grandkids in Frisco whenever she can. She loves to travel and has gone to Europe and on several cruises.
She has worked in the court advocacy program for two years and is an active member of the First Presbyterian Church where she has close friends. She feels totally satisfied to live her semi-retired life in Graham.
“I just love Graham, the trees, the people,” said Beggs. “It’s an intellectual town. Not every town this size has the intellectual resources like the library. It’s unique to have a town this size with the intellectual, artistic and historical interests.”
Wherever you see Beggs in town, she usually looks amused or is laughing about something. She just can’t help herself, and it’s a great way to cope with life.
As her mentor Erma Bombeck said, “If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it.”
